Until there is international agreement to ban such excesses, we will have to grin and bear the spectacle of bankers wallowing in our money.

Not so with the other public sector fatcats.

It beggars belief that in this age of austerity, the top earners in the public sector awarded themselves a 5.4 per cent pay increase last year.

This is the kind of greed which the Government could and should control – but hasn’t.

Meanwhile, despite the billions wasted on the welfare handouts to the undeserving, the genuine poor in Britain are worse off under Labour.

A report by the Rowntree Foundation found that both poverty and income inequality are rising – and had started to do so in 2004, before the recession began.

Those on benefits are fine but the hard working poor, trying to keep a foothold in employment, are slipping behind.

And yesterday it emerged that Britain’s industrial base had declined more under Labour than under Margaret Thatcher.

New Labour’s legacy will be that it allowed the undeserving rich to get richer, while penalising the working poor.

And now the party has the cheek to argue that the Tories cannot be trusted because they are the friends of the rich!

Let’s tax the better off, ministers cry, hoping to bring out their supporters with a class war message. This is as cynical as it is misguided; at this desperate time, Britain needs to encourage every entrepreneur the nation has whatever their social background.

What this Government should be doing instead of indulging in cheap class war tactics is restructuring the welfare state to make it worthwhile for those on low incomes to get a job.

That – rather than flying a tattered red flag – is what the Pre Budget Report next week should be about.

Yet another loophole

It took years before ministers accepted that thousands of illegal immigrants – and even terrorists – were coming into Britain on education visas to study at utterly bogus colleges. And now that the Home Office has closed that loophole, another has opened up.

The Government’s immigration adviser has identified 600 colleges awarding less than impressive qualifications which allow students to stay in Britain as highly skilled workers.

They then take low skilled jobs. This is a scandal.

Until ministers face up to the need for an absolute limit on annual immigration, there are always going to be loopholes in this appallingly failing system.